Saturday, 9 January 2010

The Battrick season has once more come to an end, with a better than expected final standings.

Managed to bounce back and earn promotion in the First Class after being demoted down to Div VIII last season. This was despite messing up my team selection on a couple of occasions. First using my outdated default team, who scraped an unlikely draw with my nearest rival, and then forgetting to set a lower declaration point against another team, the match petering out to a draw. Still managed to go the season undefeated, 8 wins, 2 draws.

Finished second for second season running in the One Day League, but it looks like we have got a camper stuck in first as, after demoting from Div III last season, he has thrown a number of games including the play-off match. Can't see how, with his quality of team, he can be earning enough money at this level. His throwing of games nearly cost me second place, something similar happened the season before and denied me a long shot attempt at first place.

The last two OD seasons in Div IV have been very similar, with a poor start and string of early defeats followed by a long unbeaten run mid-season. 10 wins in both seasons.

In the 20-20 I merely did enough to survive in it, only playing my best players in key games and using mainly the second XI, Six out of Twelve isn't bad, with a 7-4 record.

Some of my veteran 2nd XI players are getting a bit long in the tooth now, skills still OK barring stamina, which is now dropping too low to make them useful for anything bar 20-20. Since these 'old codgers' are only 35 I think this sort of puts a limit on how far my players are good for. My current generation of 1st teamers have reached an higher level of stamina prior to any decline, but will probably drop to 2nd status at around 34, and the knackers yard at around 37.¶